MGM Resorts is looking over Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market as a site for a giant casino. The jokes, of course, are on the obvious side.More than humor is at stake, though. Japan is betting on getting help from Las Vegas to boost tourism, jobs and tax revenue. Why, then, is it thinking of letting MGM and Las Vegas Sands chief Sheldon Adelson build them in places that are doing just fine without baccarat tables and roulette wheels? Japan should be steering these gargantuan, multibillion-dollar

There’s no consensus on just how many of Africa’s elephants are left. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, estimates that the population could be as few as 470,000 and as many as 690,000. Whatever the exact figure, it’s clear that China’s demand for ivory has created significant financial incentives for poachers to hunt the herds that remain scattered across the continent.On Monday, a group of researchers published what they billed “the most comprehensive assessment of illegal ivory harvest to

The debate over whether an elected president should appoint politicians as Cabinet members as part of a power-sharing mechanism or appoint professionals instead to restore the presidential system of government has never subsided.Indonesian presidents elected after 1998 tended to play it safe by accommodating political parties in their Cabinets because none of them were supported by a party that held an outright majority at the House of Representatives. The same goes for president-elect Joko “Jok

From times immemorial, China has faced droughts, with some parts of the country facing the curse every two to three years. The damage droughts have inflicted on China’s socioeconomic fabric was relative to their intensity and duration. For instance, the drought in 1994-95 was so intense that it caused a loss of $13.8 billion.South and Southeast China suffered severe droughts in 2010-11. Now Henan province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Northeast China are in the grip of a severe dr

NEW DELHI ― One hundred years after the start of World War I, the world has been commemorating that seminal event. Described as “a war to end all wars,” the Great War, as it was called at the time, failed to live up to its billing. Those who fought and died in it would not have expected its sequel just 25 years later.But while the war took the flower of Europe’s youth to premature graves, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers, and others whose genius bled

Why did the Ferguson Police Department leave the body of Michael Brown uncovered in the hot street after a police officer killed him?If you want to know why African-American men and women in Ferguson, Mo., are so upset, put yourself in their place for a moment.All you need to do is look at the cellphone video of Brown lying in the middle of the street ― in broad daylight ― face down with a long trail of blood coming from his body.In video shown on CNN, a woman is heard screaming: “Who the ― did

Once upon a time, there was a man who gave moving and important speeches about race. He was careful to respect history, to call out injustice, to acknowledge competing anxieties ― and, crucially, to elucidate a path forward. His speeches touched Americans of every color and background and gave them hope that it is possible to make progress in their great national project of creating a more just and equal society.That man was Barack Obama. As a little-known Senate candidate a decade ago, he offer

That loud hissing noise you hear coming from India is the air escaping from the Narendra Modi bubble.In retrospect, expectations that India’s prime minister would revolutionize a troubled economy overnight were wildly overblown. But three months on, even some Modi skeptics may be wondering if they have been too easy on the great modernizer from Gujarat. Since taking office, Modi has scuttled a global trade deal, sidestepped much-needed subsidy cuts, and refrained from letting foreigners hold maj

They don’t talk about the quiet in the house.Instead friends tell you all the fun you’ll have together, all the freedom you’ll finally achieve, once your kids are gone away to college.The problem is that they tell you in a chatty, excited voice, extolling the benefits of “reconnecting as a couple” and how we’ll be able to take classes together, trips, adventures, weekends, whatever.Betty smiles, pretending to like what she’s hearing, and I smile and pretend to like it too.We don’t want to be rud